Kris Attfield is the author of three books: The Book of Finch, Letters to Whomever, The Eagle's Sore: A Novella and Pfhonge, The Inter-Continental Brink of Madness, Air Defence, Doorless Darts and Blaine Bananatree - a bunch of video games.

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Forgiveness and Finding Fault

So for the longest time I've been expressing my suspicion that my grandmother's ghost sexually molested me, thusly causing me to be addicted to masturbation.

No one wants to blame grandma, in line with lds.org's definition of forgiveness where you cease to blame. OK --- so like the standard LDS church often is, when something really, really bad happens your church leaders are just going to tell you "You are required to forgive it".

Now here's the thing::: Am I really required to forgive my grandmother? You see, I would never EVER have had to mention the sexual abuse if the church wasn't constantly trying to find fault with my sexuality in the first place.

I mean, first the church has to find out if you masturbate. Then, if you masturbate, they're gonna discipline you somehow. Then, when it turns out it was actually your grandmother's ghost sexually molesting you, they'll either a) forgive your grandmother or b) never blame your grandmother (which is a form of forgiveness) and you get stuck with the discipline anyway.

So - seriously - this is a church that could easily end up punishing sexual abuse victims - I know, I've lived through it.

The thing is, if the church was so intent on forgiving the sexual abuser, they should never have been investigating my sexual activities in the first place, they could have just never cared about my private time rather than constantly worrying or trying to find fault with what I do in my personal life.